WebAG Automat 6.1 Online authoring system Intranet search engine

Product Information
2006-11-25

Intention

The WebAG Automat is an online authoring system for composing complex web information systems with multiple client capability. The information is stored in the central company repository. The integrated text retrieval system WebAG HTR offers full text search and is available on Intranet and Internet. Access to the documents is restricted with a group based authorisation system. All administrative tasks are distributed to a pool of system administrators, local webmasters and authors and thereby mirror the structure of normal intranet projects.

Target group

• The WebAG Automat user interface enables you to publish your text documents including graphics, tables, using one of the many pre-defined text layouts and home page designs, without any knowledge of the web authoring language HTML.
  
• Softwaredevelopers will rapidly create web applications using the WebAG Automat API's for web-design, authorization, navigation, search engine, form engine).

Functionality

The WebAG Automat user interface guides you intuitively through all the steps that are required to set up your web pages..

• Database controlled authorisation
• English or German user interface
• Clear and simple Explorer tree style navigation
• Context sensitive online help

You can organise your documents in self-defined "folders" for which the WebAG Automat automatically generates a hyperlinked table of contents for you. Combined with the integrated WebAG HTR search engine, this provides visitors with an efficient and structured access to your documents.

The user-friendly interface allows you to break down your documents into separate paragraphs. A WYSIWYG-editor has been included into the authoring interface. Authors can mark text and select the formatting options offered by buttons on the upper screen border:

• Bold, invers, underline, strikethrough
• Images, Hyperlinks, Tables or Numbered lists
• Upload image files
• Alignment (left, center, right, justified).
• Font face, size, colour
• Backgroundcolour 
• Indent
• Copy content from Microsoft Word, then paste it into the editor
• Clipboard (cut, copy, paste)
• Search and replace
• Styles

And if you wish to, you can completely customise your documents by including your own additional HTML formatting code.

If your Administrator permits it, you can also choose one of the available text layouts for your documents as well as your home page design at any time.

Authors use specific web design templates as "Stencils". They enter information and insert images into certain areas without being able to change the surrounding web design. It is the Administrator's task to pre-define these input areas. The HTML source code of a stencil may contain Java, Javascript, Active-X and cascading style sheets..

Your Administrator is can use the WebAG Administrator Utility, a user-friendly web application which provides easy control over the database controlled authorisation system.

After you finish your documents, the WebAG Automat will automatically transform them into a user-friendly web application containing:

• Full text search engine with fuzzy search mode
• Discussion forums
• Group based authorisation system
• Folder based table of contents
• Site map tree
• Graphic home page
• Optinally frames for navigation
• Linking of documents
• Download other documents (i.e. MS Word)
• Keywords, categories and classifications
• Reference to the author's E-mail address
• HTML trigger
• META tags for controlling external search engines

Architecture

All your documents will be stored in Oracle Corporation’s market leading RDBMS. The Oracle Application Server’s modPLSQL takes care of the communication between your web application and the database server. Functions like authorisation and the WebAG search engine are provided by PL/SQL stored procedures.

The basis for WebAG Automat is a very flexible data model, which organises the storage of your documents, text, search indices, text layouts and homepage designs in the Oracle Database. It is fully designed and documented using the Oracle Case Tools.

The data model allows you to store your documents without any tool based text formatting, whilst the WebAG Automat merges the text with the layout at when the program runs.

This means that your text information is also accessible by e.g. word processing software.

NCA - Network Computing Architecture

The Oracle Web Application Server’s HTTP listener accepts the URL and forwards PL/SQL requests to the PL/SQL cartridge to the central Oracle Database Server, where the HTML documents are generated dynamically and in real-time by the WebAG Automat PL/SQL stored procedures.

This concept achieves a large degree of independence between the server and the clients. Therefore the WebAG Automat fully complies with the NCA philosophy, which achieves cost-saving in the following areas:

• Client software installations, maintenance and licences are reduced to a minimum
• Client workstations and hardware maintenance. .

Furthermore, this concept provides:

• Easier administration and control over the authorisation of your (sensitive) information;
• Independence of hardware platform and operating system since the Oracle software is available on many server platforms.

Company-wide standards

Many people spend a lot of time on graphical design, navigation and structuring information when they start working on web applications and we all have our own personal design preferences. As soon as several people wish to exchange information, it is advisable if not essential to define a company standard for a uniform design, the structure and the navigation of all published web-pages. This will save many people a lot of time and makes your web application look a lot more professional.

The WebAG Automat is especially designed to build and apply company standards to all your web documents. All web page elements going beyond straight text information are selected exclusively in the form of specified standard layouts. These standard elements are defined with the WebAG Administration Utility and stored in a structured form in your Oracle database server.

• HTML-Triggers insert default HTML code into every document (e.g. "Last change: 23-Jan-2000 by Martin Friemel"). With a combination of the provided trigger types you can define complex web layouts.
• HTML-Stencils are made of any kind of web pages with embedded XML-tags that declare text areas as editable by authors.
• Text layouts define the look of web page components such as "heading" or "paragraph". Cascading style sheets can be of help in setting the layout.

Integration into existing environments

If standards are defined for Web Applications, they should also be available to other Intranet applications. The flexible data model of the WebAG Automat makes it possible to integrate these standards directly into the generation of Web applications by means of CASE tools such as Oracle Designer/2000.

The WebAG Automat as well as the full text search system are based on an open API that can be used by external software in order to manipulate documents or to manage the search index. The layout API makes your application look like the existing Automat-web.

Authorization

Each user of the authoring system is provided with a user code and a secret password with which he must log in. Thus his web pages are protected from unwanted modification by other people. Only by your explicit authorisation, can other people read and modify your published documents. In intranet environments authors grant read access rights on secure documents to groups or directly to single users.

As an alternative solution to our database authorisation system you can use existing web authorisation databases like the Windows NT domain database or LDAP on UNIX.

National Language Support

The authoring system can be used in English or German. Users can choose the language they want to run their application interface. Furthermore the generated parts of their web pages - i.e. the search engine - will be published in the selected language.

Administration

The WebAG Automat Administration Utility provides your Administrator an easy way to carry out the following tasks:

• Web administration
• User-/group administration
• Release-workflows with email-notifications
• Provision of text layouts
• Provision of home page designs
• Creating HTML stencils
• Definition of environmental parameters
• Production of user-specific HTML triggers

Full text search

Upon each modification of your Web documents and uploaded documents, all data is automatically included in the bi-directional search index of the full text search system WebAG HTR (HTR = HyperText Retrieval). Static Web pages are also included in the search index.

WebAG HTR provides functionality for wildcard search on multiple keywords, using the AND/OR as well as the NOT algorithm. The "Fuzzy" search mode finds similar phrases. In addition it allows an extended search on categories, classifications and single webs.

Document Option - Oracle Intermedia

The optional Automat enhancement Document Option loads - in addition the the web pages - any kind of document format into the WerbAG HTR search index (e.g. MS-Word/-Excel/-Powerpoint or Acrobat). Therefore it uses the Oracle8i Intermedia document filters. The Document Option is also usesful to provide an intranet search engine on existing file servers.

Form engine

An XML-based form system ist part of the WebAG Automat. You compose complex forms with subforms and deploy them under different form-driver configurations. The form definition and also the users form input are stored as XML documents within the database. The configuration of the "form driver" defines design, authorization requirements and PL/SQL-routines for processing the form input data.

Software Development API's

The interface to important WebAG Automat features that are there to be used within your PL/SQL-software. It covers:

• Search engine: You can add URLs with your own dynamic content to the search index.
• Automat design features: Your software is free of any layout code. Text layouts and HTML trigger that have been defined within the Automat administration will affect the design of your software.
• Implementing XML-features into your e-commerce application using the WebAG Automat XML-parser.
• Security provided by the WebAG authorisation system and the Automat user-/group administration.

Within the HTML-design templates you can invoke individual PL/SQL-operations. This is an easy way to build personnalized portals.

Innerhalb der HTML-Designvorlagen können eigene PL/SQL-Operationen aufgerufen werden, mit denen Schablonen leicht zu personalisierten Portalen ausgebaut werden können.

Hardware and software requirements

Server:
The WebAG Automat is based on the Oracle HTTP Server (Apache / modPLSQL) and Oracle RDBMS Version 9.2 onwards. All hardware platforms and operating systems, which are supported by Oracle Corporation for these products, can be used as a platform for the WebAG Authoring system, including all important UNIX derivatives and Windows NT..

Client:
The workstations require only a HTML compatible and Javascript enabled Web browser, such as Firefox 1.0 or MS Internet Explorer Version 5.0 onwards..

Contact

Enterprise Web AG
Tonhallenstraße 19
47051 Duisburg
Tel.: (0203) 295 25 50

Internet: http://www.webag.com
E-Mail: info@webag.com

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WebAG Automat Documentation
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